“And his butt,” Anh added.

“And his butt.” Malcolm sighed happily. “Such a nice butt. He has little dimples on his lower back.”

“Oh my God, so does Jeremy! I want to bite them.”

“Aren’t they the cutest?”

Olive stopped listening and stood from the bed, grabbing her phone to read the date.

September twenty-ninth.

It was September twenty-ninth.

She had known, of course. She had known for over a month that today was coming, but in the past week she’d been too busy fretting about her talk to focus on anything else, and Adam hadn’t reminded her. With everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, it was no surprise that he’d forgotten to mention that his funds had been released. But still. The implications of it were . . .

She closed her eyes, shut tight, while Anh and Malcolm’s excited chattering kept rising in volume in the background. When she opened them, her phone lit up with a new notification. From Adam.

Adam: I have interview meetings until 4:30, but I’m free for the night. Would you like to get dinner? There are several good restaurants near campus (though a shameful lack of conveyor belts). If you’re not busy, I could show you around campus, maybe even Tom’s lab.

Adam: No pressure, of course.

It was almost two in the afternoon. Olive felt as though her bones weighed twice as much as the day before. She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and began typing her reply to Adam.

She knew what she had to do.

—

SHE KNOCKED ON his door at five sharp, and he answered just a few seconds later, still dressed in slacks and a button-down that must have been his interview attire and . . .

Smiling at her. Not one of those half-baked things she’d gotten used to, but a real, true smile. With dimples, and crinkles around his eyes, and genuine happiness to see her. It shattered her heart in a million pieces before he even spoke.

“Olive.”

She still hadn’t figured it out, why the way he said her name was so unique. There was something packed behind it, something that didn’t quite make it to the surface. A sense of possibilities. Of depth. Olive wondered if it was real, if she was hallucinating it, if he was aware. Olive wondered a lot of things, and then told herself to stop. It couldn’t matter less, now.

“Come in.”

It was an even fancier hotel, and Olive rolled her eyes, wondering why people felt the need to waste thousands of dollars in lodgings for Adam Carlsen when he barely paid attention to his surroundings. They should just give him a cot and donate the money to worthy causes. Endangered whales. Psoriasis. Olive.

“I brought this—I’m assuming it’s yours.” She took a couple of steps toward him and held out a phone charger, letting the cable end dangle, making sure that Adam wouldn’t need to touch her.

“It is. Thank you.”

“It was behind the bedside lamp, probably why you forgot it.” She pressed her lips together. “Or maybe it’s old age. Maybe dementia has already set in. All those amyloid plaques.”

He glared at her, and she tried not to smile, but she already was, and he was rolling his eyes and calling her a smart-ass, and—

Here they were. Doing this, again. Dammit.

She let her eyes wander away, because—no. Not anymore. “How was the interview?”

“Good. Just day one, though.”

“Of how many?”

“Too many.” He sighed. “I have grant meetings with Tom scheduled, too.”

Tom. Right. Of course. Of course—this was why she was here. To explain to him that—

“Thank you for coming out,” he said, voice quiet and earnest. As though by hopping on a train and agreeing to see him, Olive had given him a great deal of pleasure. “I figured you might be busy with your friends.”

She shook her head. “No. Anh’s out with Jeremy.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking genuinely regretful for her, and it took Olive several moments to recall her lie, and his assumption that she was in love with Jeremy. Only a few weeks earlier, but it already seemed so long ago, when she hadn’t been able to imagine anything worse than Adam discovering her feelings for him. It sounded so foolish after everything that had happened in the past few days. She should really come clean, but what was the point now? Let Adam think what he liked. It would serve him better than the truth, after all.

“And Malcolm is with . . . Holden.”

“Ah, yes.” He nodded, looking exhausted.

Olive briefly fantasized about Holden texting Adam the equivalent of what Olive and Anh had been subjected to for the past two hours, and smiled. “How bad is it?”

“Bad?”

“This thing between Malcolm and Holden?”

“Ah.” Adam leaned his shoulder against the wall, folding his arms across his chest. “I think it can be very good. For Holden, at least. He really likes Malcolm.”

“Did he tell you?”

“He hasn’t shut up about it.” He rolled his eyes. “Did you know that Holden is secretly twelve?”

She laughed. “So is Malcolm. He dates a lot, and he’s usually good at managing expectations, but this thing with Holden—I had a sandwich for lunch and he randomly volunteered that Holden is allergic to peanuts. It wasn’t even PB and J!”

“He’s not allergic, he fakes it because he doesn’t like nuts.” He massaged his temple. “This morning I woke up to a haiku about Malcolm’s elbows. Holden had texted it at three a.m.”

“Was it good?”

He lifted one eyebrow, and she laughed again.

“They are . . .”

“The worst.” Adam shook his head. “But I think Holden might need it. Someone to care about, who also cares about him.”

“Malcolm, too. I’m just . . . concerned that he might want more than Holden is willing to offer?”

“Believe me, Holden is very ready to file taxes jointly.”

“Good. I’m glad.” She smiled. And then felt her smile fade, just as quickly. “One-sided relationships are really . . . not good.” I would know. And maybe you would, too.

He studied his own palm, undoubtedly thinking about the woman Holden had mentioned. “No. No, they’re not.”

It was a weird kind of ache, the jealousy. Confusing, unfamiliar, not something she was used to. Half cutting, half disorienting and aimless, so different from the loneliness she’d felt since she was fifteen. Olive missed her mother every day, but with time she’d been able to harness her pain and turn it into motivation for her work. Into purpose. Jealousy, though . . . the misery of it didn’t come with any gain. Only restless thoughts, and something squeezing at her chest whenever her mind turned to Adam.

“I need to ask you something,” he said. The seriousness of his tone made her look up.

“Sure.”

“The people you overheard at the conference yesterday . . .”

She stiffened. “I’d rather not—”

“I won’t force you to do anything. But whoever they were, I want . . . I think you should consider filing a complaint.”

Oh God. God. Was this some cruel joke? “You really like complaints, don’t you?” She laughed once, a weak attempt at humor.

“I’m serious, Olive. And if you decide you want to do it, I’ll help you however I can. I could come with you and talk with SBD’s organizers, or we could go through Stanford’s Title IX office—”

“No. I . . . Adam, no. I’m not going to file a complaint.” She rubbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers, feeling as though this was one giant, painful prank. Except that Adam had no idea. He actually wanted to protect her, when all Olive wanted was . . . to protect him. “I’ve already decided. It would do more harm than good.”

“I know why you think that. I felt the same during grad school, with my mentor. We all did. But there are ways to do it. Whoever this person is, they—”

“Adam, I—” She ran one hand down her face. “I need you to drop this. Please.”

He studied her, silent for several minutes, and then nodded. “Okay. Of course.” He pushed away from the wall and straightened, clearly unhappy to let the subject go but making an effort to do so. “Would you like to go to dinner? There’s a Mexican restaurant nearby. Or sushi—real sushi. And a movie theater. Maybe there are one or two movies playing in which horses don’t die.”